Free Republic

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 07/30/2007 Pelosi Statement on Lobbying Reform Bill House to Vote on Tomorrow Washington, D.C. -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which the House will vote on tomorrow and the Senate later this week. Below the Speaker's statement is a fact-sheet on the bill: “Democrats are following through on our promise to change the way business is done in Washington. On the first day of the 110th Congress, we passed a landmark rules package – the toughest ethics reform in...

Lobbying abuses keep party from implementing its ideas and solutions In the recent and ongoing influence scandal in Washington, members of neither party can claim that their hands are clean. And while neither party is solely responsible for the political fundraising structure, Republicans, who earned their majorities in both the House and the Senate in 1994 as the party of reform, have a particular obligation to restore credibility swiftly and decisively. Re-establishing the integrity of the political process is a necessary precondition to getting on with what Republicans were put in charge to do – and that is the important...

For the good of the party and the nation, lobbying reform is the last thing congress should study. Their run for reform is a red herring; it will place blame on the lobbyists instead of unethical members of congress; it will blame the presence of money instead of corrupt behavior, shifting the blame away from its true resting place, the politicians. Don’t let them do this. Congress should punish its members who broke the law, not claim that many did things that are post facto wrong. If they do the latter, any conservative associated with lobbyists will be dead election...

For the record, Jack Abramoff, and any one else who has committed such crimes should go to jail. But in the wake of the Abramoff lobbying scandal, various members of the US House and Senate are jockeying to be the first to introduce (and have their names attached to) legislation regarding lobbying reform. Those that can’t be first will no doubt try to top the others with more stringent versions of the legislation. In other words we’re about to be treated to another version of that favorite Beltway game, the reform follies. This is a game where the participating politicians...